802.16 WiMax Wireless Broadband on the Horizon

securitas writes "Products using the emerging IEEE 802.16 WiMax wireless broadband standard should be available early in 2005. WiMax's hundreds of megabits per second bandwidth looks promising to many vendors and service providers who met in San Jose at last week's Wireless Communications Association (WCA) International Technical Symposium & Business Expo. The point-to-multipoint 802.16d standard, with a 50-kilometre range, is expected to be complete by February, ratified in March and deployed in the first quarter of 2005." (Read on for more.)

"The IEEE 802.16e spec, which will support mobile applications, is expected to be complete by early 2005. Nextel, Sprint and BellSouth are all interested in the technology to deploy services like streaming video and TV, wireless phones, and high-speed Internet service in unserved, low-density areas near high-density ones. Mobile operators in developing countries like Brazil's NEOTEC group have already successfully tested an 802.16 wireless broadband deployment. Intel communications group executive VP and GM, Sean Maloney, is banking on it. From the article: 'We believe that WiMax can happen, and be widely deployed, and be a big deal in the next three years the same way Wi-Fi has been a big deal the last two years.' Mirrors at Network World Fusion, Techworld and PCWorld. What happens when techies start to build their own 802.16x WiMax VoIP systems?"

Comments

802.16

[Anonymous Coward]

0.05 better than 802.11!

I don't think this will displace 802.11

[The One KEA]

From the sound of it, this new spec appears to deliver far too much bandwidth to really make it cost-effective for the average consumer. IMO this is best for fixed-wireless installations where installing cabling is too cost-prohibitive - especially if the range of the radio tech used in this spec is decent enough.

Re:I don't think this will displace 802.11

[BuckaBooBob]

Not to mention I can easily Guess that the transcivers are not for deregulated bands aswell. With a ~50K Range It would be nearly impossible to make it available for home use. Even if the Range was cut down to a mere 3K (Aprox 2 Miles) Spectrum congestion would make it unusable.

This is promising.

[vidarlo]

But I can't realy see how this is gonna work? Usually, higher bandwith means higher frequency. Higher frequemcy means less range, since the waves is easilier interupted by obstacles, like trees. and so on. Someone care to explain this to me?

Re:This is promising.

[CaptainAlbert]

Usually, higher bandwith means higher frequency. Higher frequemcy means less range, since the waves is easilier interupted by obstacles, like trees. and so on. Someone care to explain this to me?

Without getting too technical - you're right, sort of. The article is rather muddled; it mentions the frequencies in question (2.5GHz region, which is microwave), and then has some confused sentence about "point-to-multipoint meaning no line-of-sight is necessary". Well, that's nonsense. Microwave propogation is almost exclusively line-of-sight. Without LOS, signal strength drops off dramatically.

However, if you use spread-spectrum techniques (which 802.16 does), you can overcome a lot of these problems. Basically, the characteristics of a wideband SS signal are such that multiple reflections (even weak ones) can be separately received and combined. This is a big gain over narrowband radio, where reflections cause inter-symbol interference which causes the signal to deteriorate.

Another factor that may be more significant - this standard seems mainly to be for delivering broadband to fixed installations (not mobile stations). Well that's an easier job by orders of magnitude: you only have to site the antennas correctly once, and you never have to worry about them moving around.

In conclusion: it's quite different from the radio technology we're most used to, and there's a little thing called progress to factor in too! :)

Hope that helps.

hmmmm...

[Spytap]

Nextel, Sprint and BellSouth are all interested in the technology
Great...just what's needed from a phone provider: more wireless technology that they can provide terrible reception with.

yikes

[sirmalloc]

that's bound to make more than a few people sterile.

Re:yikes

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Not to worry, most geeks who are the target of this new uber-cool technology only ever try to impregnate tissues. I doubt you'll see a dip in the nation's birth rate because of WiMax.

50 kilometers ? Power consumption ?

[moneymaker]

The point-to-multipoint 802.16d standard, with a 50-kilometre range, is expected to be complete by February

I wonder if it becomes actually viable ... The power consumption might reduce the actual advantages for a laptop/mobile system ?. The battery is thing still dragging mobile computing , it's still 1970's space-age technology. But maybe methanol fuel cells will come up by 2005 end ?

[http://wiki.dotgnu.org/DotGNUPeople/gopz]

Re:50 kilometers ? Power consumption ?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

The battery is thing still dragging mobile computing , it's still 1970's space-age technology

Because before 70's "space age" batteries, they were using what? gerbil-powered dynamos?

50 Km range uh?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

The point-to-multipoint 802.16d standard, with a 50-kilometre range

Omnidirectional antenna-equipped routers will double as handy microwave ovens.

Re:50 Km range uh?

[uslinux.net]

er, probably not. The 2.4GHz, the FCC has a 4-watt EIRP limit on point-to-multipoint links, and I can't think of a reason that they would allow more power on these devices. Since a 2.4GHz link can go 30+ miles, 4 watts seems reasonably low.

It takes ~90 seconds for a 1000 watt microware to warm a glass of water, and quite a bit longer to actually boil it. 4-watts is minimal, and since RF power drops off at the inverse square, at 10' it's practically in the mW range. You'd have trouble even *warming* water that was right next to the antenna.

Now, point-to-point links can be ~150 watts. That would probably warm water to 100 degrees, given enough time, but antennas of that magnitude are ~4 degree beamwidth (you can't run power like that through an omni), so you'd literally need to stand right in front of the apex of the dish.

I'm more concerned about the 200mW Senao 802.11 card in my laptop irradiating my crotch, thank you very much.

Where will they find the Frequency

[eyempack]

My largest concern regarding this is the frequencies are they going to mess it up again with hair brained auctions (Cell phone's) or make it so restrictive that even my microwave will buzz my connection (802.11). I fear for how the FCC will dream up this freq. distribution.

Re:Where will they find the Frequency

[SchnauzerGuy]

This will be using licensed frequency blocks, and won't interfer with the 2.4GHz unlicensed frequences used by 802.11.

All this really is, is warmed over MMDS. MMDS was going to be the next big thing in the 90's - Sprint, in particular, was active in MMDS (you might remember it was called Sprint ION). As with a lot of new technologies, it was rolled out into a few markets, lost a lot of money, and was shut down.

Flash forward a couple of years - 802.11b/g (WiFi) is hot (hence the name - WiMax), broadband Internet usage popular, and the equipment is better/cheaper, so wireless companies are going to give it another go - except this time it will be sold as broadband Internet + VOIP, instead of a replacement for cable TV and also broadband Internet.

From browsing the user reports in the DSL Reports forum, it looks like, despite Sprint's best efforts to feck it up, most people really were happy with their ION performance, and very sad to see it shut off.

Re:Where will they find the Frequency

[jmilne]

MMDS was going to be the next big thing in the 90's - Sprint, in particular, was active in MMDS (you might remember it was called Sprint ION).

Actually, Sprint's MMDS offering was (is) called Sprint Wireless Broadband Direct. While they are not going after new customers, this service is still available in a few cities to existing customers. Sprint ION was more of a DSL/ATM/Voice combo. As far as I know, it had nothing to do with wireless service.

MaBell Will Stop This

[mikewren420]

Don't worry, I doubt this technology will ever see the light of day... or if it does, it will remain cost-prohibitive for regular consumers.

Too many people have way too much to loose if this becomes the standard like 802.11 has. In any urban or suburban areas, image how many Wifi hotspots there are within 50km... or even 25km.

Cell providers and ISP's are going to fight this every step of the way because of the competition this could pose... with the right hardware. How long before we see 802.14 VoIP handsets sold on thinkgeek? ;)

Re:MaBell Will Stop This

[hanssprudel]

When you take off the tinfoil hat, do you have any evidence that it works like this? What great technologies, exactly, have been killed off because people had too much to loose from abondoning less efficient alternatives?

Do you mean like how AOL and Compuserv killed the Internet? How Kodak and Fuji killed the digital camera? How Sun and IBM made Linux illegal? How the dial-up ISPs made sure DSL was never invented?

There is always a comment like this in stories about new technology here, but there is absolutely nothing that points to this being the case. In fact we have a system that is flexible and rewarding of new inventions.

Re:MaBell Will Stop This

[cHiphead]

solar power; any fuel source not related to coal/oil/nuclear waste; gas efficient car engines; IBM's OS/2 Warp.

How fast is it?

[xfs]

All I see anywhere is 'hundreds of megabits per second' but i haven't seen any actual numbers... anyone know?

Re:How fast is it?

[Keitero-sama]

seeing that its still vaporware (as far as any real performance benchies are concerned) its as fast as my cable now (which is down due to the snow storm that hit NC yesterday, thank you mother nature.)

Great potential for developing countries

[heironymouscoward]

There is no real demand for this kind of technology in countries that are already well-cabled with more fibre-optic cable than they can ever use.

We did a project once in Nigeria that depended on semi-reliable Internet connections across the country. The only option for our client was to install VSAT stations, at a cost of $50,000 each not counting operating costs.

With 50km point-to-point range it becomes very possible for operators to build a national IP network with local distribution via WiFi or cable.

This could do for Internet what the GSM has done for telephony in large parts of Africa (i.e. brought modern communications to millions of people who have never been able to get it before).

Re:Great potential for developing countries

[pesc]

There is no real demand for this kind of technology in countries that are already well-cabled with more fibre-optic cable than they can ever use.
Yes there is. The fibre-optic cable is great for the internet backbone, but you don't have fibre to every house in the suburbs and rural areas. This wireless tech would be truly excellent here!

With 50km point-to-point range it becomes very possible for operators to build a national IP network with local distribution via WiFi or cable.

Not really. While you could build a wireless backbone using this technology, the bandwidth would suck. And using this tech for the backbone and using cable for local distribution would be insane. This new tech is great for the last mile distribution of internet access. The backbone is better built by using fiber.

Re:Great potential for developing countries

[Tokerat]

Have you any idea what sort of bandwidth requirements whole countries in Africa have, compared to the average US neighbourhood of a few thousand?

Have you any idea what kind of money can be saved and used for the developing economy if in 20 or 30 years time the entire Internet structure of a country doesn't need a complete replacement because they did things backwards like build backbones with WiFi?

If they're planning on developing, someday their bandwidth requirements will increase. They're either prepared, or they pay to do it again and stifle their efforts.

Re:Great potential for developing countries

[fruey]

A lot of countries installed VSATs into a few key towns and then paying massive amounts for hardly any bandwidth at all and no national backbone at all.

Using a decent wireless solution is the only IP backbone most places I have been have had. Microwave mostly, some spread spectrum stuff. 100mbit backbone would be amazing in a lot of poorer places. Sure, cable would be better, but significantly more expensive. A lot of governments don't care about mid to long term, because nobody plans that way when they themselves don't intend to be there too much longer. They might lay cables in road development works and when distributing electricity, but to cover massive distances cheaply, wireless is the way to go.

Oh, and I've lived and worked in Africa. Tunisia, Morocco, Malawi, Niger... and in the Caribbean in Haiti too. I made the mistake of making a short post earlier, perhaps, but you are so wrong here. Have YOU been to Africa? Have YOU worked in telecoms in Africa? I have.

Re:Great potential for developing countries

[heironymouscoward]

Well, despite posting on Slashdot, I've spent many months in Nigeria and while 1200 Km of expressways sounds a lot, it's not for a country that is almost a million square Km. As soon as you leave the main cities you are on secondary roads made of a thin layer of tarmac over hard earth. Cables? Where?

Microwave links are used, yes, but mainly as we might use leased lines - expensive point-to-point links between two business locations, between an ISP and a company, that kind of thing.

Microwave links do not work when it rains, however. This means they are out of action (in Nigeria's south) for a day or more per week during the rainy season. As you go north this is less of a problem. In countries like Congo it rains even more and the air is so humid microwave links are a problem.

Good communications are always a boost for a country - look at GSM networks, which in some places have multiplied people's standards of living by a factor of five or more simply because they can work around the sheer awfulness of the roads and communications infrastructure and start to do business efficiently.

Of course Africa needs better communications. The challenges are not trivial, however, nor the same as we know in the US and Europe.

Re:Great potential for developing countries

[Timothy Brownawell]

Have you any idea what sort of bandwidth requirements whole countries in Africa have, compared to the average US neighbourhood of a few thousand?

Have you any idea what kind of money can be saved and used for the developing economy if in 20 or 30 years time the entire Internet structure of a country doesn't need a complete replacement because they did things backwards like build backbones with WiFi?

If they're planning on developing, someday their bandwidth requirements will increase. They're either prepared, or they pay to do it again and stifle their efforts.

If wireless is enough cheaper than wired, that shouldn't be a problem -- put in a cheapo temporary wireless infrastructure and only cable sections as needed, rather than cabling everywhere right away... even if they do end up installing as much cable as they would've had this could end up effectively cheaper (in %gdp terms, not absolute price) since the local economy has more time to grow before they have to buy the cable and pay for having it strung up.

Tim

WiMax in wide range of bands

[G4from128k]

The original article alludes to using WiMax in licensed bands such as 2.5 to 2.7 GHz and, while another article suggests the potential for operation in a wide range of bands from 2 to 11 GHz (and early testing in unlicensed frequencies at 5.8 GHz). This suggests that these devices will initially be available in mutually incompatible consumer versions (unlicensed spectrum) and service provider versions (licensed spectrum).

I wonder what this will do for adoption because the volume on the RF components will be fragmented across multiple bands. I also wonder if people will create WiMax variants that interfere with WiFi by operating in the same frequency space.

If you don't know what you're talking about

[Czernobog]

please refrain from posting.

Spectral efficiency measures the ability of a wireless system to deliver information within a given amount of radio spectrum and is directly related to system capacity. It determines the amount of radio spectrum required to provide a given service (e.g., 10 kbps voice service, 100 kbps data service) and the number of base stations required to deliver that service to end users. In the latter years of deployment, when subscriber penetration is high, it becomes one of the primary determinants of system economics.

Spectral Efficiency = Channel Throughput/Channel Bandwidth

Spectral efficiency is measured in units of bits/second/Hertz/cell (b/s/Hz/cell). It determines the total throughput each base station (cell or sector) can support in a network in a given amount of spectrum.

Copied from: http://www.arraycomm.com/pcct/spectral_efficiency. htm

There's a million places I could point you to. So to say that capacity and frequency are not related is simply wrong, if not ignorant. The same definition stands for all wireless communications schemes, regardless of whether they use cells or not. All operators, whether it's Telephony or Networking deploy their networks and offer services based on spectral efficiency and power needed to achieve that efficiency. Nothing else. Bit rates, Frequency and all the rest of it are just byproducts...

Wonderful! and Open Source enabled?

[Leon Yendor]

Given that, so far, only 802.11b is truly Open Source capable, can we hope that this one will be ?

As so many (supposedly) Open Source coders have been ready to wave their legs in the air and sign NDAs to do drivers for various supposedly OS-Oses I won't hold my breath.

Don't know which ones? If they aren't 802.11b just try to see the hardware specs they used to write the driver. The code is NOT open if you can't publish the specs.

Security(WiMax) Security(WiFi)?

[G4from128k]

I do hope that WiMax features more robust encryption than does WiFi with WEP. Something tells me that service providers are not going to be too concerned with interception of their customer's packets (only theft of bandwidth). And even if WiMax is "secure," I'm sure that it will include a nice backdoor for government counter-freedom operations.

Just boost wifi power to, oh say, 800-1400 watts

[weave]

Imagine the benefits of allowing wifi card makers to boost the power of their transmiters. It would make the microwave oven obsolete too. An entire dinner could be cooked while it sits on the dinner table, oe for that matter, before it even leaves the grocery store. Cows could be cooked while they stand in the fields. Also, no need for water purification plants, since all rivers and lakes would be under a constant boil. And, best yet, no need for artificial heat in your house during those cold winter months, since you'd be warmed from within!

NYC: you tawkin' ta ME?

[Doc Ruby]

I work with the NYC City Council, and we're studying wireless "broadband" deployment. NYC has 20M people inside a 50Km radius - that's 8bps per person on a 155Mbps 802.16a segment. And the multipath reflections through our concrete canyons would destroy much of that bandwidth. Cranking down the power reduces the multipath, and allows our dense city to scope a segment to a smaller footprint, shared by a manageable number of people. How about attenuating the shape of the field, a la Pringles can, to merely fill the grid of Manhattan streets? External building antennae can hook the WAN signal to LANs, without wasting its power soaking through the concrete. Anyone have a field demo of this topology running? Want to talk to my committee in sunny Manhattan?

Re:NYC: you tawkin' ta ME?

[Muad'Dave]

You can use spatial diversity (which is similar to cranking down the power, really), frequency diversity, and polarization diversity to prevent interference. If you choose frequency-agile user equipment, you could deploy many hotspots covering a particular area and use signal strength to choose which to use (a la cell phones). Similarly, using polarized antennas can lead to significantly less interference (rhcp vs lhcp, not just horiz vs vertical).

For instance: Using fairly directional antennas, aim RHCP signals north on even GHz every few blocks across lower Manhattan, and LHCP signals every few blocks pointing west on odd GHz down the west side. Form a grid of access using both freq and polarization diversity. Naturally you could alternate sites east/west, north/south so reception would be equalized around the island.

Good luck!

Re:NYC: you tawkin' ta ME?

[Doc Ruby]

Problem in NYC is that leakage is a 2way street. I pity the aliens visiting who see in the RF: Times Square without the refined good taste, in a vast array of "colors" from the city that invented it (cf. Nikola Tesla). All that buzz is why coax shielding is smart enough (:-) to keep RF *out* as well as *in*. Meanwhile, I'm exploring the spatial segregation by attenuation, more than the frequency segregation. Fitting a custom antenna on low-power standard 802.16a bases seems cheaper and more interoperable than custom frequency locks. Not to mention the bandwidth and noisy-channel avoidance offered by the full band for frequency hopping.

Re:Security(WiMax) Security(WiFi)?

[Lehk228]

Encryption should not be a part of the protocol, it should be separate so it can be updated as technology improves

Finally

[Fjord]

People can stop trying to hack 802.11[abg] into a long range protocol. I've have potential clients ask me for long range wireless solutions and basically had to tell them that it can be done with 802.11[abg] but it's hacky, unsupported, and I can't do it (being a software guy and neither an infrastructure nor soldering guy).

Re:Finally

[djh101010]

People can stop trying to hack 802.11[abg] into a long range protocol.

Maybe I'm reading you wrong, but I have a couple of questions:
1. How do you define "long range"? With a couple of directional antennas, a 1 mile 802.11b link is very solid.
2. Have you looked at the previous articles on slashdot on last-mile 802.11* solutions? One of them pointed to fab-corp.com who I have dealt with, and whose products, service, and information are top notch.

If with FAB's information you're still overwhelmed, there are lots of good resources on doing this, without having to resort to mangling floppy disks, paperclips, and pringles cans, all in ways that give you a robust, stable long range solution.

Five mod points, no sensible replies here

[puzzled]

I've got five moderator points this morning and there is exactly one post in here I'd mod up - the guy who suggested that people not post if they don't know anything, but he already has a +5.

There is a link in my sig to my journal and there you'll find a brief description of how 802.11 (wireless lan) and 802.16 (wireless access) differ.

50km == 30 miles. I've installed 2400MHz and 5800MHz links on the same 22 mile path and I've done a bunch of other 20 +/- 2 mile shots using 5800MHz.

At 22 miles with 19dB dishes on each end we saw analog modem speeds with 2400MHz (802.11b) equipment. Using 29dB 2' Andrew dishes and 100mw 5800MHz radios we saw a solid 5+ mbits on a radio that maxed out at 8 mbits.

I've planned a 40km 45 mbit shot for a project that didn't go through - I think we had a 4' dish on the remote tower and a 6' dish on the skyscraper end of the link.

Whatever band and modulation method they're using in these breathy 802.16 announcements the physics aren't going to be much different than what I describe above - long shots are point to point, cells are small (3km - 4km) if you want to go fast, and I mentally say "snake oil" when I hear the letters O-F-D-M. It works, but it ain't "all that", as they say.

So, mod me wise, or mod me troll, but know this: The slashdot collective has as much business talking about wireless networking as any room full of male gynecologists and cross dressers has talking about childbirth.

50 K range?

[crawdad62]

Wow you won't even need a "sniffer." You'll be able to smell that from the next city.